INNATE SENSE OF THE DIVINE

Theology meaning

Thinkers use theologies to understand God and his experiences
Points out a contact between God and humans that can be discovered when analysing the things around us

Romans 1:18-21:

Paul states God can be understood by understanding his nature
His invisible nature + Our rationale = Knowledge of God
NATURAL THEOLOGY

Sensus Divinitatis

Sense of the divine/Seed of the divine
Paul + Others argue we have this sense integrated into all of humankind
Mental capacity and desire to know God - as we are made in his image (imageo dei)
Exclusive to humanity - God only breathed spirit into Adam
Catechism of the Catholic Church and Calvin agree

Thomas Aquinas

Human opens to beauty and goodness are aspects of God
Human intellectual ability to reflect on and recognise God’s existence
Humans are supreme intellectual beings who wield the duplex cognito dei.
Innate knowledge in the form of the sensus divinatas

John Calvin

Protestant reformer
Conscience, beauty and intellectual capacity
Metaphor of the seed

Roman Catholic Church key quote

“The desire for God is written on the human heart.”

Arguments for Natural Theology

• Cicero and Calvin argue that so many people believe in God(s), thus there must be one because of this mass-spread speculation
  

• Acts 17:16-34: Paul tries to convince people in Athens that they are worshipping the true God, even if they don’t know. Athens was the heart of intellectual philosophy, ridiculed for this - “Paul the babbler” - invited back to be laughed at; but this was how the message was spread

• Catechism 28: Religious rituals and meditations are so universal that “One may well call a man a religious being”

Arguments AGAINST Natural Theology

• Douglas Hedley: Imagination needs to accompany reason in arguments of philosophy drama, prose poetry are both creative and truthful. Imagination leads the point astray

• Karl Barth: Arrogant to imagine that fallible human reasoning could lead anyone into Knowledge of God

• Freud: “Theological belief is no more than wish fulfilment,

• Dawkins: “Religion is the ultimate copout”

• Hume: “A Wise man proportions his beliefs to the evidence.”

Quotes for Natural Theology

“The desire for God is written in the human heart”
- Catechism of the Catholic Church
“No-one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God.”
- Acts 17:28, Calvin
“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it.”
- Romans 1:19-20
“The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the filament proclaims his handiwork”
- Psalm 19:1
“Both experience and history point to a God who acts not by coercing but by evoking the response of his creations”
- Ian G. Barbour